Category Archives: avsp

Hey folks! Sorry, but I am caught up in a few other projects for the next couple of days, including returning to classes following Spring Break. We have the episode recorded, but I have been editing reports, documents, ppts, quizzes, labs, etc since Tuesday and before that it was grading midterms, not leaving time to edit this week’s podcast. Once I get the report wrapped up I should be able to take the 1.5-2 hours it takes to get the episode edited and put together. It may be up as early as Monday night, but I think Wednesday night (EDT) is a more likely release timeline.

I think I am going to blame on the transition to daylight savings time…that was an hour lost right there! #BanDST!

We have been going at this for a while now…500 weeks of production at least. Our first blog post (of about 3,600 to date) went up on July 12, 2005. The first podcast episode went up later that month on July 24th. Since then we have created 500 weekly audio episodes, around 50 video episodes, 72 Special Episodes, and around 110 Roadshow (conference) episodes, putting us closer to 730 total episodes (and I probably forgot to count some).

Today is a day that we will hold dear for its milestone number, but it is just a step toward 2015’s true highlight in our hearts…our 10th anniversary. As we head toward July we are going to continue to highlight conversations we have at upcoming conferences, our own thoughts on changes in the geospatial industry, and topics discussed with industry insiders…but we (as always) would like to know who you would like us to talk to and topics you would like us to talk about. I encourage you to tweet us, email us, even call or Skype us, and let us know what you would like to hear.

I would like to take a second to introduce Aleigha, our intern for the next couple of months (the Spring 2015 semester). She is a senior studying Journalism and will be working on a few different things to help us as we head to our 10th anniversary. The two main things that you all will see are some:

1) ‘back to basics’ perspective pieces about various technologies (UAS, LBS, FMV) that we talk about all the time in the podcast, but which we often start from a (somewhat) expert perspective. I hope Aleigha, as someone looking in from the outside, can provide a voice that speaks to those just getting into these acronyms and terms; and

2) a couple of episodes of VerySpatial TV. We will start planning those episodes in the next couple of weeks and you should see them in March or April.

Either way, it is great having her on board and we look forward to sharing her experiences as she learns about the wonderful world of Geography and geospatial!

As we have mentioned on the podcast a couple of times, we are kicking off a book club to focus on Geography themed books. We will focus on popular and trending books with an eye towards texts that are current and less expensive (under $20). We are using Goodreads’ group functionality to host the book club. We encourage you to go over and check out the group and join us.

We are already searching for future books, so let us know if you have any suggestions. If you are an author or a publisher, please let us know about your book so we can put on our list of potential reads. One thing we plan to do as we get a clear schedule (both for the discussions and future books) is to give away a few copies of the book we choose. To that end, keep an eye on the VerySpatial Twitter account later this week as we give away a couple of ebook versions of this month’s read.

Howdy! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. We probably are (ask us later) since we are pushing this week’s episode (469) back to mid-week. It is mostly to do with a last minute schedule change I caused, but a little bit to wait and see what else hits by the Esri UC keynote on Monday.

As you might expect we had planned to run interviews from the Esri EdUC and UC for the main topics in 469 and 470 (and others). Even though we canceled our trip to San Diego this year in mid-June…I forgot to plan something for this week. Add in the last minute schedule change and it may lead to the rest of the July podcasts as mid-week releases. I guess we will find out together on the 20th.

One last note. As a fun bit of nostalgia, watch out on Sunday for Special Episode 72 which a retrospective that highlights the intros from our first 8 years of podcast anniversaries as we head toward our 9th anniversary. It is the beginning of our year long(ish) countdown, first to episode 500 in February and then our 10th anniversary next July.

We are stuck on the east coast this summer and will not be at the Esri UC for first time since 2006. We hope to be back next summer for a 10th anniversary shindig, but for this year we are missing out on some of the great hallway and exhibit hall conversations we normally bring to the podcast.

If you are presenting or exhibiting at any of the number of user conferences this summer and you would like to talk about your project or product, please contact us at podcast at veryspatial dot com. We can schedule a phone, Skype, or Google+ interview for sometime in July.

We are looking for one or two interns to support blog and podcast activities on VerySpatial.com for the Spring 2014 semester or Summer 2014. Any undergraduate or graduate student in Geography or a related field can apply. Activities for the internship will include:

research content for podcast and blog,

write weekly short blog posts on current news items, and

create maps for a special series of monthly posts.

To apply, please send a short writing sample and a resume to podcast at veryspatial.com. We will begin the review of applications as they arrive, including setting up potential Skype or Google+ interviews, and make a decision by the beginning of January 2014.

We downloaded several apps for our Very Spatial Road Trip that were recommended by friends, online reviews, and VerySpatial podcasts. Since she was acting as navigator, Barbara insisted on stopping at AAA and picking up a stack of paper maps for back up. We found that there is no better crucible for road testing a travel app than a lengthy trip into the unknown under sometimes stressful and time imperative conditions. We felt like the explorers in Dava Sobel‘s book “Longitude” who were sent to sea with new technologies that we hoped would live up to their claims. It wasn’t until after our trip that we heard more honest opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of the apps we packed. A friend, who is a global traveler, told us that it is good travel etiquette to leave our own input on any crowd-sourced apps as our “payment” for using it and to “pass it on” to other travelers. In that spirit, we have written a review of the apps that we used on our road trip from WV to CA.